The invention relates to an apparatus for discharging incineration residues from furnaces, particularly refuse incinerators, having a water-fillable trough to which the incineration residues are supplied by means of a drop shaft comprising a discharged chute having an upper wall wherein the chute adjoins the trough at a transition point wherein the chute slopes upwards from the trough and has at its upper end an overflow edge, a reciprocatible piston for moving the incineration residues from the trough to a circulating device positioned in the discharge chute, said circulating device being in the form of a conveyor means for moving the incineration residues through the discharge chute to the overflow edge wherein means for separating the chute from the trough is provided above the transition point between the trough and the chute.
Apparatuses of this general type are disclosed in Swiss Pat. Nos. 360,152 and 867,121, and suffer from the disadvantage that they cannot be operated for incinerating wood waste, bark and similar sorted, crushed refuse. Thus, such refuse produces small amounts of very light and difficultly wettable ash, which only slowly settles in water. It is also not possible to lower the water level, because the exclusion of air between the discharge chute and the drop shaft cannot be ensured by the ash alone.
Apparatus of the aforementioned typed are, for example, known from DE-OS No. 2,739,396 and DE-OS No. 2,539,615. However, in the case of the known apparatuses, it is only possible to discharge incineration residues from the trough to the chute by means of the piston when the drop shaft is sufficiently full with the residues. Thus, it is only then that, after each piston stroke, sufficient combustion residues can pass from the drop shaft to the trough to fill the piston stroke volume and form a plug, which is moved to the chute during the next stroke. In the case of the known apparatuses, the incineration residues can only be moved through the chute when it is sufficiently filled with such residues. Thus, it is only then that each plug fed to the chute is able to advance the plug of the preceding stroke enabling the incineration residues to be gradually conveyed through the chute, plug by plug, until at the end of the chute they pass into a suitable transporting means for the removal thereof. Thus, it is disadvantageous in these apparatuses that in the case of faults in the vicinity of the drop shaft or the chute, the latter cannot be operated empty, i.e. the incineration residues must be hand shovelled through the maintenance opening. This always leads to a long operating stoppage and is linked with considerable accident risks for the workers working in the trough. In addition, the need to provide for the manual emptying of the incineration residues through the maintenance opening, means that in the vicinity of the latter and the trough a considerable amount of space must be left, inter alia for the parting and movement of transportation means for removing the incineration residues which have been shovelled out.